Petitions for rehearings are relatively long shots. Google probably petitioned only in order to cause delay.

In the smartphone patent cases I watch, the Federal Circuit generally tends to arrive at right holder-friendlier conclusions than the ITC and various district courts. Google has not received much good news from the Federal Circuit lately. Last month its petition for a rehearing on Apple's fairly successful appeal of another ITC ruling was also denied, and the ITC investigation of Apple's complaint against Google's Motorola Mobility will therefore resume shortly. And last week, Google experienced a dreadful hearing (from its perspective, not that of creatives and honest innovators) in the Android-Java case.

That FAT patent, too, will expire soon. That fact alone should have given people pause. Even if they were right (and they are not, see the third bullet point) that Microsoft's Android patent licensing revenues depend very much on that one patent, a court ruling so close to expiration is not too relevant in commercial terms. License agreements (especially those involving patent portfolios as opposed to single patents) typically don't provide for a refund based on subsequent invalidation.

The German decision is specific to European law, which differs from the patent laws of other jurisdictions (especially the U.S.) because of its technicity requirement. The patent was not invalidated based on a straightforward obviousness theory, but because the elements that set the claimed invention apart from prior were not found to be "technical". Even if this holding was affirmed on appeal (which is far from certain), it wouldn't be possible to replicate this in such jurisdictions as the United States, where there is no statute excluding computer programs "as such" (i.e., without a technical contribution) from the scope of patent-eligible subject matter.

Microsoft's Android patent license deals (20 of which are known) are not single-patent license deals. Instead, companies receive broad coverage relating to any of Microsoft's patents that read on Android or Chrome. In fact, Microsoft has already asserted dozens of different patents against Android in court (mostly against Google's Motorola Mobility and to a smaller extent against Barnes & Noble in a dispute that was settled a while ago), making it clear that FAT is only a small part of Microsoft's Android-related patent holdings. I actually believe that Microsoft has dozens or even (more likely) hundreds of additional patents it could assert against Android, but it prefers to strike license deals, which is why "only" a few dozen of those patents have been asserted in court so far.

If you'd like to be updated on the smartphone patent disputes and other intellectual property matters I cover, please subscribe to my RSS feed (in the right-hand column) and/or follow me on Twitter @FOSSpatents and Google+.

Subscribe To

Followers

Total Pageviews

Search This Blog

About Me

Florian Mueller is a former award-winning intellectual property activist with 25 years of software industry expertise spanning across different market segments (games, education, productivity and infrastructure software), diverse business models and a variety of technical and commercial areas of responsibility. In recent years, Florian advised a diversity of clients on the patent wars surrounding mobile devices, and on their economic and technical implications. (In order to avoid conflicts of interest, Florian does not hold or initiate transactions in any technology stocks or derivatives thereof.) He is now developing a game app for smartphones and tablet computers.